Category: wedding

One of the most annoying things about getting engaged is all the backseat married couples that will start giving you advice. Hell, most of the people who give you advice aren’t even married. You’ll start hearing some advice from your family, your friends, all of your co-workers and even strangers that notice the nice new rock on your hand. This can all be a bit too much when you’re just trying to make a wedding work and get through a wedding without breaking the bank.

The burden of the wedding is already heavy on your mind and the last thing you need is someone telling you exactly how stressful this is going to be for you. So what do you do? What are some real tips that are from real couples that were learned the hard way?

First, there’s your photographer. While most photographers know what they’re doing, you have go to direct him. People that have a passion for art like most career photographers have a love and passion for simplicity, the angles of a picture and the general beauty of a situation surrounding the picture. They often get lost in their own creativity and imagination. This isn’t a bad thing per se but sometimes, they need guidance.

You have got to direct your photographer on where to go, who to photograph, how many pictures to take and what they should be doing. This isn’t to say they’re dumb people but they often just get lost in their own train of thought. The next thing you’ll want to do is start brushing up on the wedding etiquette. You have to be aware and know by now that not one single wedding has gone off completely without a hitch. There are so many different things that can go wrong at a wedding.

One relative that hasn’t seen another relative in a long time might say something to offend them, there could be a fight, there could be someone who’s too smashed to be there, etc. the worst case scenario is that the husband gets cold feet and leaves the bride at the altar but the chance of that happening is actually relatively low and never really happens (statistically). You need to keep your cool and maintain some nice etiquette no matter how the dire situation is.

Then there’s the perfect wedding dress. Do you know how hard it is for women to choose anything based on the first thing they see? Hell, even driving through the drive thru, women have hard enough of a time just trying to order some food based on a menu of food presented to them. So now imagine if you will, there are thousands of dress styles available to them and they can even custom make their own. This process can take weeks or even months for women to make up their mind. Involve your friends and family to help you pick the perfect dress for your big day. Don’t spend months stressing on something like a dress you’re only going to wear once.

If there’s one thing people like about weddings (there’s honestly not many things people enjoy about them), it’s the post wedding celebration ceremonies. This is when people become too hammered to put together coherent thoughts, they hit on brides maids, they dance like crazy, get to finally eat and mingle to the people that they want to mingle with, assumingly avoiding in-laws. When planning out a ceremony, remember that it’s not all about drinking and making fools out of yourselves.

You should be planning out your ceremony around celebrating the rejoice and the success of a marriage ceremony that went through without a hitch. You shouldn’t have to be stressed over the planning of something this minor. Believe me, the groom is far more stressed about dancing since most men cannot dance for some reason. I mean, it’s just basic feet movement but that’s another issue for another article.

The ceremony is a time where you can relax, fatten up your dress with some cake and let the real party begin before the honeymoon. Now, this might go against everything that wedding planners tell you but you need to invite more people than you think will actually come to the wedding. This is for good reason because you invite just the right amount, the room might look like it’s too few short and if you invite too many, the room will look just right. This doesn’t mean invite anyone and everyone as you don’t want everyone to show up and not have the budget to cater to them, so there are limits.

Make sure that you mail out all of your save the date cards before you actually send your invitations out. Remember that the goal with this is to make sure people can get time off of work since they’ll have to plan this far in advance. If you do this months in advance, more people will be able to show up and get some time off work.

Remember to delegate as much of the work as possible and let other people help you with the planning. The ceremony is the last thing that’s usually planned or gets taken into consideration so when you’re stressed and burned out from planning, you could end up batching your own ceremony plans. Also, remember not to stress over the small things as there’s really no point in stressing over them.

Schedule and plan out all of the events. Don’t just assume you’ll figure out the itinerary on the day of or try to put it together last minute. The band, the caterer and all these people you hired are on strict schedules (expensive ones too). It’s much easier to track everything if you plan out events and times those events occurs on paper.

Look, rehearsals aren’t fun but they’re very much so needed during the planning process. You need to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing and they’re ready for the big day. Not rehearsing could have stressful results for you and hilarious results for everyone else.

Alright, let’s talk about an uncomfortable situation. No, we’re not going to talk about the in-laws but we can understand where you’d come up with that conclusion. Let’s talk about tipping and gratuity, especially in the business of tipping the people who are working your wedding. You’ll quickly learn when doing the hiring for an officiant that they don’t actually charge anything but many of them work for free. Some of them don’t even care if they receive any gifts or tips but it’s still gracious to give them something regardless.

Well, of course, this is assuming that the service was good and went off without a hitch. You obviously don’t want to tip someone who gave you terrible service and I wouldn’t blame you in that case. The thing about weddings is, the payment is awkward for all parties involved. You’ve got the band, the catering and all these different people who want paid right away. You’ve got some people who are too nervous to ask about their payment and they’re just assuming that you’ll take care of it and the likes. It’s not their fault, asking about payment from someone is awkward.

The most honesty people in the room are probably the in-laws because they’re the ones more than likely helping pay for the wedding and if there’s a cost that’s questionable, they will definitely bring it up. However, putting all of the usual costs aside, there’s the gratuity for the officiant. So, how do you determine how much he should get or what kind of gratuity he should get in the first place? There’s a couple of different things to consider.

First, was the officiant professional? Did he present himself in a manner that made him look professional and like you’d use him again if you were getting married all over again tomorrow? Next, what kind of trouble did the officiant go through to get to you? Did they have to travel a long way and did they have to go through a long road of obstacles to get to you? Take their travel plans and arrangements into consideration when deciding whether or not to be gratuitous.

How did the actual wedding go? Was the officiant in charge of the ceremony and did the officiant run the show? Did the officiant make it known that you two were the center of attention or did they wait around waiting to take orders from the bride? This is the biggest contribution factor as the officiant needs to know what they’re doing and how to direct a wedding or else, it’s going to be a potential disaster.

Now, even if the service was less than perfect, you might still want to consider giving a tip his way or else, he could have a bad taste in his mouth left for you when he leaves. Word of mouth travels a long way but most officiants are gracious people and usually aren’t the type of people to hold grudges of any kind. Use your best judgement.